DVLA 2 Day closure in Mid-September for AFRL and New registrationsBack

As you may be aware, over the last 12 months the DVLA has been implementing major changes to the majority of its systems to increase the number of online services available.

The next stage of this exercise is the transition to a new mainframe computer which will support the majority of DVLA’s external and internal services, including the AFRL service.

This is a hugely complex and sensitive operation as it requires the transfer of 45 million driver and 35 million vehicle records so will take a few days to complete. Once the exercise is finalised, it will offer a safer system for both DVLA and franchised dealers to use, and will include an improved disaster recovery capability. It will also be easier to implement system updates and this should reduce the number of system outages experienced by users.

Due to DVLA contractual issues with their previous software supplier, the transition has to be completed by September 11. DVLA have tried to minimise the impact on dealers by arranging for the system transition to happen as far as possible from the peak September periods at the beginning and the end of the month.

As a result, the AFRL Co-op, AFRL Web, SOM Web, Personalised Registrations and the Vehicle Management services will be closed from midday on Friday 9 September and will be unavailable on Saturday 10 September. Normal service should resume on Monday 12 September.

DVLA understand that this may cause issues as the transition falls during one of the retail motor sectors busiest times and they apologise for this. They do though advise and encourage dealers to fully utilise the 14-day advance registration facility to minimise impact on customers. DVLA will also invoke the contingency arrangement for unregistered vehicles during this period. This will enable registration of vehicles to be completed on Monday 12 September. In addition, due to the requirement to complete Friday batch runs earlier than usual, all AFRL Co-op batch returns will be sent earlier on that day before the mid-day closure.